Conductor wire harnesses of the type mentioned above are, for example, used in the electrical wiring of an aircraft to complete such wiring in accordance with standardized work procedures. The formation of the conductor wire harness normally involves, among others, the following work steps. Measuring the lengths of individual conductor wires, the arrangement of wires relative to each other, the insertion of the wires into sleeves or protective jackets, the securing of individual contact elements such as contact pins or contact bushings to the respective individual wire end after its insulation has been removed, the securing of the just mentioned contact elements in a connector member or in cable terminals, the binding or tie wrapping of harness branches, the insertion of vacant contacts and dummy plugs, the removal of the finished harness from the harness carrier, the rolling up of the finished harness and its packaging. Conventionally, all of the foregoing steps are performed while a conductor bundle or harness is being formed on a harness form board. It has been found that performing all of the above steps on one and the same form board is not efficient even in a fully automated operation, especially when the harness has a substantial length because in that case the form board must have a corresponding length, whereby it becomes cumbersome to handle such large form boards having a length of up to 30 meters.
Another disadvantage of performing all the harness completion steps on the same form board is seen in that the latter remains unavailable for prolonged periods of time for the formation of other conductor wire harnesses. As a result, it is necessary to provide a substantial number of large form boards in order to assure a trouble-free manufacturing sequence. Still another disadvantage of the large size form boards is seen in that they require a substantial factory floor space which is not justified by the actual size of the harnesses formed. Thus, there is room for improvement with regard to the efficient use of such form boards.
There are also known in the art tools including automatic tools for the performance of most of the above mentioned work steps. Such tools include automatic crimping devices and automatic insulation removing devices. However, these automatic tools and robots do not change the basic conventional situation which requires a substantial floor space for the harness formation, even if a form board remains on a roller conveyor for cooperation with a fully automatic harness producing robot system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,734 (Bloch et al.) discloses a robot wire harness assembly system in which the harness is fabricated substantially automatically. Such a system includes computer controlled components such as a wire reeling subsystem, a wire terminating subsystem, a wire queuing subsystem, a lay-up subsystem, and the logic computer controller. Bloch et al. utilizes as a harness carrier a form board (115) which has a rectangular configuration and is movable on a roller conveyor of substantial size. The robotic components extend across the roller conveyor in gantry or cantilever fashion so that the form board or harness carrier can pass through the work stations from one end of the roller conveyor to the other and back again. The so-called "lay-up robot" uses a variety of tools and completes all required operations including the tie wrapping. The just described conventional system requires an extraordinary large floor space. This is so, especially when long harnesses are to be made. Harnesses for aircraft electrical wiring may in fact have a total length within the range of 20 to 30 meters. Accordingly, the form board (115) of Bloch et al. would have to have a length within this range. Thus, the width of the roller conveyor would have to correspond to the substantial lengths of the form board. The lengths of the roller conveyor extending perpendicularly to the lengths of the form board is also substantial to provide space for all tools thereby requiring an extaordinarily large floor space.
Further, there is no possibility of reducing the floor space for a system according to Bloch because in order to achieve the required precision, especially with regard to accurate lengths of the individual wires of the conductor wire harness, it is necessary to assemble the individual wires into the harness in their true actual shape or configuration. As a result, the dimension, especially the longitudinal dimension of the form board (115) must have a length corresponding to the longest harness branch to be made on that particular board.
Another drawback of a fully automated system is seen in its initial investment costs. Such costs are not justified, especially where small lots of many different types of harnesses must be manufactured. A semiautomatic system as disclosed herein is substantially more cost-efficient, especially with regard to the initial investment and particularly where small lots of many different types of harnesses must be made.
Yet another drawback of the fully automated system is seen in that its operational speed is limited to the slowest component within the chain of cooperating automatic tools. Thus, the available computer control speed cannot be utilized, for example, by the robot (95) in the system of Bloch et al., because the robot (95) must move its limbs mechanically back and forth.